Distracted by Trees; Making 28mm Forest Terrain Tutorial Part 1

Once Bitten

SO there I was, innocently and dispassionately painting up some 28mm AWI militia...

When all of a sudden I felt a small pain in my foot, not a hurtful pain, but a sharp pinch, and I looked down to investigate and saw...

It's the Terrain Bug!

I was bit by the Terrain Bug.  This sometimes happens to wargamers, where instead of painting miniatures you are filled with an unreasonable desire to make terrain.  I feel that I am more susceptible to the Terrain Bug because I usually enjoy making terrain more than painting figures.  Terrain is more about persistence than it is about talent, and usually more forgiving.  Unlike some women I've known..

Once bitten by the terrain bug there's nothing for it but to do a terrain project.  Inevitably, the 28mm AWI militia were placed to one side ("Will we never be painted?"they cry), the hobby desk cleared off, and out come the power tools and glue.  Also online shopping for materials.  It's fun to buy things.  

Thoughts on Forest Terrain

Ahhhh, the ways of trees.  One can never have enough trees for the wargaming table.  I'm pretty happy with the way I represent forest in 15/18mm gaming.  In my ACW games woods tend to dominate large areas of the table and I am happy with just covering those areas with trees.  The woody areas tend to extend all the way to a fence or a road, and I also use logs or clump foliage to mark where the forest ends if not.  Like seen here on this ACW game "A Clearing in the Wilderness." 

This table is mostly woods with a cleaning marked out by the fields and logs.

But for 28mm gaming, especially skirmish, I like everything to have it own base.  I have long wanted to improve my forest bases.  And I'm gonna need more forest terrain for my 28mm AWI tables (and not to mention Dark Ages, which I'm suddenly back into after it's recent return to the gaming table).  

I want the forest terrain to be pretty and functional.  Unlike some women I've known.  What do you mean I've already used that joke? It's called 'a call back,' it's a joke that gets funnier each time.  Currently in my collection I have forest terrain that is pretty, and some that is functional.  

The Pretty

Here are some forest bases that I bought from Architects of War several years ago before the company went bankrupt due to launching 'All Quiet on the Martian Front.'  (remember that? It was quite the hobby scandal).  These are sculpted resin bases, painted and flocked, with some trees glued into the holes provided.  These look really nice (if I do say so myself) but because the trees are not removable, it's actually super hard to place troops onto the base.  You just can't get your hands in the right places, like some women I've known (SEE, it is getting funnier).  The problem gets worse when you group the bases together to make a large area of woods that might take a turn or two of movement to get through, because you can't physically move your troops through it.  You have to do that thing where you grab a miniature by the top of his head or upheld sword and drop it into place.  

Sometimes I think there's almost TOO much detail.

The Functional

I could of placed more trees but I got lazy and you get the idea.

Here are some forest bases that I got from Gale Force 9 also years and years ago.  As you can see, these are just some textured bases with some flock on them, and the trees are just placed on top.  It's a nice kit because the bases come ready made with little bags of flock for you to glue on where you want, and come with trees.  These are obviously very functional because you just move the trees off the base when you're moving troops into the forest area.  Very gamer friendly.  But it's not especially pretty.  I mean it looks alright, average, but nothing you would cheat on your wife with (not that I would or have done that, I just like the phrase).  

Other First World Problems 

Other problems that aren't really problems: I don't like using these sets together on the same table, because they're not consistent with each other.  It's jarring to my eye.  So I end up using one set or the other.  There's also not enough of each set to really cover a table well.  I'm always wishing I had 1 or 2 more forest bases, especially the large ones.  Overall, my forest bases are NOT satisfying me, like some wo...(alright alright i'll cut it out now).   None of this is really a problem except that I got his mildly painful bite on me foot.   Itching.  

The Plan for Forest Bases

With all that in mind, I'm gonna set off to make some forest terrain for my 28mm games.  I'm gonna try to thread the needle between the bases being pretty and functional, and eventually make enough to satisfy my needs.  A Supermodel with a doctorate degree.  That might be shooting too high, because we all have to settle in life.  I know I did.  Settled hard.

I've never done a project like this before, though for blog purposes I'm gonna pretend like I know what I am doing, that's why I'm calling it a tutorial.  I have made some tree bases on CDs that came out alright (See post "Make like a Tree Part 1 here and Part 2 here).  

Starting off: make some bases. 

For the bases I'm gonna be using hard board.  I have these hard board sheets left over from when an IKEA dresser bit the dust.  These are the wooden panels that make the underneath of the drawers.  There's probably a joke in there about the word drawers.  Forest drawers?  meh. 

Draw out the size of the bases you want in sharpie.
My large bases will be around 8" by 11".

Time for power tools!
I'm doing this outside on the side of my house, so I can hide from the family.
And because it's gonna be messy.
I still got the COVID 19 hairstyle.  Think it's been 5 months now without a haircut.

Cut out all the shapes.
Told you it'd be messy, but the jigsaw made short work hard board.

I then took a sharp knife and beveled all the edges.
This was not hard to do, even a guy like me with tiny biceps found it pretty easy.
I often say that 'my guns' might be small in caliber but they're high in velocity!

People laugh and laugh.

 

Moving inside, here they are all cut out and beveled.
6 large bases, a number of smaller ones,
and the bottom left squarish one is gonna be a hayfield.

I don't really think the hard board is gonna warp, but as an extra layer of protection I then primed both sides of the bases.  I think this is gonna seal the wood more, because I'm gonna dump glue and texture materials all over them, and then paint them, and then glue more stuff on them.  

Priming the bases is just something I saw other people do on the internet, so I don't know if it's actually necessary, but can't hurt.  

The Plan in More Detail

I am open to feedback on this plan:

The large bases will get some small details like rocks and maybe a fallen tree, but ultimately will remain mostly flat.  The smaller bases will have the trees glued onto them and given lots of details and have some undulations.  Then the forest terrain proper will be made of the large base with small bases and some individually mounted trees placed on top.  So the whole thing will look really pretty with all the details, but still be functional because you can just take things off / move them around to accommodate miniature troops.  

Something like this.

 Next steps in part two!  Can you stand it??  

(EDIT:  Part two is now posted HERE)

Thanks for reading.  I appreciate it.  Stay healthy and safe. 

AWI buildings; From Bare Wood to...

 

Hello all; I've cobbled together my 28mm AWI buildings from Sarissa.  In this post I'll show what I did and pretend that I knew what I was doing and ya'll can nod your head and play along...

Let's begin, it'll be fun.

MDF Buildings need Love Too.  A Lot of Love it Turns Out

Alternative title: Set expectations to 'presentable.' 

I'm still procrastinating starting the lead pile of American AWI infantry so I tackled some more terrain. 

After all, I didn't buy these Sarissa North American houses for nothin. 

As I was putting these together I was struck by how very plain the MDF kits were; really just basic wood shells with very minor details.  The kits are fine in themselves, went together smoothly and are solid enough to withstand clumsy wargamer hands.  In these initial phases I kinda regretted not getting buildings from 4ground.  4ground buildings once built are done and ready to go (the only negative is that each one looks like every other 4ground building) and these Sarissa buildings once done still require effort to make them look pretty. 

It's like the difference between men and women; men get out of the shower and are ready to go and women have another 45mins of hair and make up.  Unless you're into man-scaping, I don't judge, I had a metrosexual phase too.  

So these buildings will need a little love before hitting the table; problem is that after loving Wife #1, The Kids, Select Members of my extended family, and strangers on the internet, I don't have a lot of love left to give... in other words I wanted them to look decent but not put in too much effort.  Let's see if I was able to thread the needle between being lazy and getting some presentable results. 

As a refresher, the buildings started out looking like this:

"Please love me" they say.

"Come Closer"

Were You Born in a Barn?

One time saving / lazy technique I tried was simply to spray paint the buildings the color that I wanted them, versus priming them white or black and spending a lot of time painting them.  This worked OK.  I learned that if you spray from far away the etched details (like seams in boards) are maintained.  

I also learned that you have to seal the spray paint with a varnish before you paint over it.  Otherwise the spray paint just sorta repels the hobby paint and it takes several coats.  There probably some cool science-y explanation for this. 

The Barn was spray painted red, and the windows and doors picked out in white.
I thought this looked suitably Barn-ish.  Aren't all barns red?

But I was bothered by how bare the inside appeared.
It just looks unfinished and like it's missing something.

It's the floor that is then most jarring and needs help.  What goes inside a barn?  Obviously hay and straw.  But I've never been in a real barn so what do I know? 

I found THIS helpful post from Pat over at the blog of Wargaming with a Silver Whistle, well known for his terrain, on how to make hay stacks from door mats.  Thought I would give it go..

Take a door mat and cut it into small strips.
I have lots of this door mat material lying around from my FoW days.
It's ubiquitous for fields in 15mm. 

Then using my manly strong hands I cut the material off the strips.
Slightly messy, but getting a pile of straw / hay raw materials.

Covering the floor of the barn with white glue, I suddenly thought:
"Wait! Maybe I ought to try this out with a spare base of something...eehh, too late now.
Fortune favors the bold and all that."

The "straw / hay" was then push into the glue along the floor and let dry.
When does straw become hay anyway?

After it was dry, I dry brushed it with a dark yellow and then a bright yellow.
Overall, came out looking pretty good.  A big improvement over the bare floor anyway.

Some troops in the Barn

And now for the roof.  Again, being lazy and not wanting to be crazy like Lazgun over on his blog making his own shingles (and buildings), I simply bought some premade ones.  I was alerted to the existence of these from hanging out on the TMP forum.  

These were very handy and easy to use.
Just glue them onto the roof in overlapping strips.

Completed Barn viewed from the outside.

Our House, is a Very Very Very Fine House

I have 4 of these Sarissa houses that all basically the same.  I don't know if that will be a good or bad thing once they're on the table because maybe it'll be too uniform.  But it's what I bought so it's what I got.  Maybe they all just belong to the same HOA.  (I don't like it when my house has an HOA, but I love it when your house does!)

During the process of building the houses I took pics at different times because I was not organized and was kinda finding my way, completing a step on one house influencing how I did the next...

First up I spray painted the houses like the barn, using off whites or whatever color and then sealed them with varnish.  When dry I painted the window and door frames and what not.. 

Work in progress shots, you get the idea.
Paint up the outside as you see fit.

Some of the houses had a stone pattern along the foundation and all the chimneys have stone etched detail, which I did NOT feel like painting.  Instead, I remembered this tip from The Tactical Painter (who is MUCH better at prettying up these Sarissa kits) of using embossed paper with a stone or brick  pattern.  

I picked this up from the same online store that I got the roof shingles.

It's a simple matter of cutting the paper to shape, and gluing it onto the model where you want it.

Instant foundation and chimney.
You can see another house in the background

BUT WAIT A SECOND!  Are those bricks in the chimney going vertical instead of horizontal?  What a silly mistake.  I'm sure no one will notice even though I just noticed and I'm sure I only did that once...

GAAAAH! Both of these.  I'm gonna have to fix it because it'll bug me.

That's better.  Actually looks more like a chimney.

The inside floors of the houses have some lines denoting floor boards so that is alright; enough detail for me.  Just paint it brown.  Everyone in the AWI has hardwood floors.  Which just leaves the inside walls and chimney looking a little out of place.  

Bricks can go in for the inside chimney, and I had the idea of using dollhouse wallpaper for the insides of the house.  These aren't log cabins after all, so a little finery is not out of place.  At first I was thinking of purchasing some in the appropriate scale, but then I found some printable designs on the wonderful internet.  Yes, wallpaper existed back then,  it's called the Federal Era.  Extra knowledge exploding all over your brain.

I printed the patterns on cardstock (I raided my wife's supply like a thief in the night) and just cut and glued it into place.  I used the parts of my 4th house kit as a template.  At first I tried to make it one sheet of paper per wall with the doors and windows cut out precisely but this turned out the be hard to do, and started to feel like effort, so in the end I just guess-ta-mated and just glued cut out strips around the windows.  

So far so good.
Wait! Are those chimney bricks VERTICAL again?
AND I forgot to leave a hole for the fire place.
What an Idiot I am.

Completed interior.
I think I'll leave the chinmey as is because I'm starting to get a bad case of the
"its-close-enough-itis."
Besides, don't I have infantry to be painting?

(I actually didn't steal any card stock, I told my wife I was gonna print out wallpaper and was told "That's the cutest thing I've heard."

I think this one came out better.
"Shoot out the windows guys!"

The roofs of the houses were done using the same premade shingles.  

Success? From Bare Wood to...Presentable

Largely a success.  While I was saying in the beginning of the post (you did read the text of the post right? not just skim through and look at the pictures?  I never do that..) that I had some buyers remorse with the Sarissa kits because of the extra effort.  However, now that they're done and each is a little unique building I like them a WHOLE lot better.   Each looks pretty good from the outside, and on those occasions when troops enter a building there's a little something extra inside to keep up the illusion.  There's something of a rabbit hole on how many details you can start to model, but on the whole I did what I wanted; the wargamer standard.  One thing I wanted to do was add some window sills and such to the insides but I seem to be out of balsa wood.  Though I didn't have any and it seemed like a small thing to go out and go shopping for during PANDEMIC...so that will have to wait.

Mind Games (and Final Presentation)

Because what I want in my terrain is that momentary trick of the brain; where we see the terrain items and not the material it's made from.  Our brains all know that these things are not the real thing, but it's more fun when our brains tell us "that is a house...made of paper" versus "that is paper..shaped like a house."  This momentary illusion is helped by having more stuff that around that set's the scene.  

Recent terrain projects with some old trees

Not too shabby for colored paper glued to wood.

I think the AWI project is coming along slowly but surely.  Thanks for reading today.  

Clash of Spears Review

A post where I tell you about a new set of rules called Clash of Spears (CoS) that I recently discovered.  I bought these rules as a PDF mostly on lark because I wanted something to read, they were on sale, and I'm always looking for rulesets to use for the Dark Ages and Lord of the Rings.  

I read the PDF, liked what I read enough that I ordered the rulebook.  Then was lucky enough to actually play it when my friend Mr. CG invited me over for a game and let me pick.  A fortunate series of events.

As you can tell by the tone, I liked these rules.  Just my opinion of course, but I am practically a genius and not to mention really good looking and very modest.  

I brought my Dark Ages miniatures, my terrain, and my Cigarbox mat.
While I love my homemade mat, it can be hard to transport sometimes.
Here we have the game in the beginning phases.
The 2 objectives to fight over are the large rocks near the middle of the table

But First: Gaming During COVID

I'm pretty happy to be getting in ANY sort of Face to Face gaming during these times of rising infections in the USA.  I need some gaming time because life can't always be about work, politics, pandemic, and house chores.  Especially house chores, I seem to have endless house chores.  I blame the children.  

The wife and I have established some ground rules for gaming.  1- I have to go to their place because she's not having anyone bring their germs into our house.  2- Mask needs to be worn all times. 3-Games need to be small affairs (not big 6 player ones). 4-When I get back the clothes go into the laundry and I go into the shower, just like I return from work.  I might have a shaggy head of hair after not getting a haircut for 4 months, but it's a clean shag.  

These little hoops are a small price to pay for some fun game time.  No problem.  

Clash of Spears Review 

I’m gonna give an overview of some of the mechanics and more importantly how it plays.  You can find some good game play videos on you tube as well.

Here is a 15 minute Vid that demonstrates a combat between two units.

Here is a long video of a game played by the two authors and they do some explaining along the way.

 

Scope

The game is a skirmish game that plays on a 4x4 and uses around 40 ish miniatures per side.  A standard game is 900 pts and the two forces that I used were 830 points and had around 36 miniatures.  The miniatures are grouped into units of 4-12.  So an army has around 4-5 units with some individual leader characters walking around looking bad ass, probably pointing a sword or raising it above his head or some such.  It plays in around 2 hours.  

The game is set in Ancients, which I don’t play because I could never understand the history and if it’s not a fight between a bunch of howling barbarian Gauls versus some silent stoic Romans then I don’t know what it is.   So I just ported it over to the Dark Ages.  Which was easy to do if you accept that a heavily armed soldier in the ancient times would be equivalent to a heavily armed soldier in the Dark Ages.   There is an official Dark Ages supplement in the works, and online they have some Dark Age beta testing army lists.   But more importantly online they have the point system so you can design your own units very easily.  In summary, it wasn't much work at all.

My Saxons stalking through the battlefield

Game Begins: Engagement Phase

I love it when games have a sort of mini game of deployment that more importantly, streamlines/ combines putting the armies on the table and the first couple of turns which are usually just moving the units to where you want them.  CoS begins with no miniatures on the table, but each unit assigned to a token and these tokens in the deployment area.  Which unit belongs to which token is a secret only you know (and how good are you at secrets?  very I hope).  Players take turns moving these tokens in an attempt to gain some advantage.  The further you move these tokens the more fatigue a unit will start with (more on fatigue later, it's an important concept).  Effectively your unit wills start the game proper around 16-20" from the enemy.  If you were clever you were able to put some units on the flank or have denied an import area from the enemy.  Then players reveal which tokenf are what units to cheers or guffaws, place leaders where they will be most effective, and the game begins. 

It's a really fun method of game set up.  Depending on your force organization you will be allowed to take some dummy tokens, to use to outwit the enemy, that simply vanish later on.  Overall it's very effective in speeding up the initial parts of the game so that when you get to the actual game play, you're executing your plan of attack versus spending a good amount of time setting up that plan.

Game Play and Core concepts

Core Concept Units: A Unit will have somewhere between 4 and 12 miniatures.  All of my units had 6-8, which seems to be the sweet spot.  Each unit has a handful of stats that you expect like melee, ranged combat, morale, armor save, etc..  and some traits that make them special.  I appreciate that the stats are all used consistently; in that a lower number stat is better and you always want to roll high (so if your combat stat is a 3+ then anything 3 or higher is a hit).  Units can move in Open order in little blobs or Close Order for better protection, like a small shield wall.  Range is measured from unit to unit which is always easier.  

Vikings coming down the side of the woods.

Game Play Activation and Reactions: Players take it in turns to be the active player.  When you're the active player you have 3 options: Spend a command point to activate a unit or character, rest a unit to reduce it's fatigue, or pass and do nothing.  A game turn is basically both players going through their activation until they're out of command points or both pass.  

During a game turn a unit/character can perform 3 actions total.  Here is the interesting bit: when you activate a unit it can do all of those 3 actions during this 1 activation (Unit does action x, then y, then z (unit moves up, unit shoots it's bows, unit moves back to safety and gives the bad guys the finger)).  Or you can activate a unit and it does 1 action and call it quits and let the other player go, then later in the turn activate the unit again (for another command point) to do it's 2 remaining actions.  

These actions are the usual stuff of move, shoot, throw something, change go into close order, attack, etc..   Characters/leaders behave the same way that units do; the only differences is that a character / leader is a unit of 1 guy and has a pool of command points attached to him. In general the leaders end up standing around right behind the lines looking impressive and getting the units to do the actual fighting for him.  Exactly how I would want to do it if I were a leader.  

However, if a unit is doing a second action, the other player gets a chance to react with one of his units.  There is a roll to do this.  It's an interruption that can take place after the first action but before the second, or after the second but before the third.  This means that even if you're not the active player you're always thinking / engaged in the game because it might be a good time to react to foil the enemy's plans.  

So: a unit can activate 1-3 times a turn and take up to 3 actions over a turn.  How you use these actions is a BIG part of the game.  Units use actions while activated but also to react, actions can also be used for a response to combat (more on that later), AND any unspent actions reduce fatigue at the end of the turn (I still haven't covered fatigue yet, I'm getting to it!)  

What this means is that during the game turn each player is constantly involved by making decisions. Not just to roll saves.  This gives you the feeling that you are always playing and not just waiting for your turn.  

Red dice mark the fatigue of the units.

Core Concept: Fatigue.   Ok, let's discuss fatigue because how you manage the fatigue of units is another key mechanism, if not the most important.  There are two things that cause defeat and kill your units; the spears of the enemy and fatigue.  

Fatigue represents hits to a units moral/stamina/motivation.  A unit can hold up to 6 fatigue (any more than that convert to wounds) and if fatigue is more than x2 the number of miniatures in the unit then the unit is removed from the table.  As fatigue adds up it inflicts negative modifiers to the unit making them harder to activate, worse as combat, etc... so even your most bad ass and blood thirsty unit can become ineffectual with a lot of fatigue on it.  

Fatigue is generated by doing actions and from fighting / getting shot at.  Let's talk about those separately:

Units get fatigue by doing actions, but the smart part is that the rates in which units get fatigue for doing anything is not the same.  That sounds like it's complicated but it actually works really smoothly in the game.  Basically units made up men in heavy armor, carrying heavy shields and scary axes will get tired  faster (generate fatigue) while running around the battlefield while units of men in nothing but tighty whiteys and carrying sling shots don;t get nearly as fatigued.  For example: a unit of skirmishey troops and a unit of heavy armored Huscarls both move for 3 actions covering the same distance; the skirmishers will accumulate no fatigue for this while the Huscarls will accumulate 2.  

Some actions always generate fatigue as well; mainly the combat ones that kill people.  Also, fatigue can be generated as the result of combat if your unit took hits / casualties from failed morale rolls. 

There is more to it than I'm saying of course.  And while it sounds little complicated and it is, the fatigue dynamics flow perfectly with the game mechanics and you get used to the concept pretty fast.  It is quite simply one of those 'elegant mechanics' that work so well.  

What the fatigue system also does is ensure that troops mostly do their roles; with light troops running around hither and thither throwing javelins while your heavy troops dutifully march slowly into place and slug it out.  And I say 'mostly' only because it's not set in stone, your heavy troops can do a sprint if they need to... probably once.  

Fatigue is removed by taking the Rest action, OR at the end of a turn any unit that did not spend 3 actions gets these left over actions converted into rest actions.  

My Saxons try to hold one of the rocky objectives while Vikings stalk the woods.
You'll have to trust me on that, it's the dark ages and everyone looks the same.

Game play: Combat: It's a game about melee combat, and CoS really has great combat system.  There are things we commonly see like the number of dice you roll is the number of guys in the unit...units with great combat skills hit easier and units in good armor have better saves.  

A unit has several options for actions for hurting the enemy; they can Attack, All Out Attack, Shoot, Throw stuff.  There is no need to go into each one, and there are modifiers of being in Close Order or Loose Order.  Combat is kept simple in that it's always one unit versus one unit; no gang ups.  

What is interesting and unique in the game is that the defender also has options.  The defender can Hold (sit there and take it), or Defend (actively defend themselves gaining the ability to cancel hits BUT this cost an action), or Counter Attack (fight back and hurt the enemy BUT this costs an action and will generate a fatigue).  Unsaved hits result in removing miniatures, and any unit that took a hit(s)  (either the attacking or defending) do a moral test with each failure earning a fatigue.  

So when you attack an enemy unit the goal is not just about removing miniatures (which is always nice) but also to inflict fatigue or to burn up the enemies actions if they do anything beside Hold.  And an Attack is just one action, so a unit can attack once, then attack again for the the second action, and even attack again for it's third (though enemy gets to react as described earlier).  Now that attacking unit itself is probably pretty blown  now burdened with fatigue, and will need to rest before becoming effective again.

Overall, Combat is more than just rolling for hits and saves, but a calculus of how far you can push a unit versus it's fatigue, according to your own plan of resource management.  Again, it just works so very well.

All that pretty terrain, and only the woods near the middle matters.
That's what happens when you play a meeting engagement.

Overall

I was REALLY impressed with these rules.  It's one of the better skirmish rules sets I have come across.  It's simple enough that you can teach it to someone whose never played it (CG picked it up pretty well and he even won the game if that means anything).  It's complex enough not get boring and it keeps you engaged throughout.  It's not a beer and pretzels game, it's like a step or two above that.  It is well written and nicely illustrated.  Another excellent feature is that you can use command points to influence rolls so if you really need that reaction or activation you can spend more resources to increase the odds.  

Just so that I don't sound overly enthusiastic here are some minor negatives:

Counter Heavy:  The game needs a lot of counters which are not my favorite thing.  Each unit and character needs to track it's fatigue 1-6, each unit and character needs to track it's actions 1-3.  Each Character needs to track it's command points 1-5.  You'll need to sometimes track if a unit is unloaded.  It's a lot a lot of counters.  I used dice to track fatigue and green, yellow, and red markers for the actions (provided in the book).  Command points were whit dice.   I'm gonna have to think of some pretty ways to do this because I don't love dice on the table.

Scenarios: The book comes with 5 scenarios which are well written but are all variations of the "meeting engagement."  Meeting engagements almost always mean fighting over the middle of the table.  I would of liked to see one or two attack and defense scenarios. 

Side Discussion /RANT

One of the scenarios is the classic meeting engagement scenario where each side must fight through the other to get off the board on the opposite side while at the same time prevent the other side from doing the same thing.  This scenario has always bothered me because it's so gamey and stupid.  I can;t think of one actual time in the history of war where this would of been the objective.  It's just some tourney scenario that just turns up over and over again.

Townspeople watch the game.  But who are they rooting for? 

My intention was just to give a brief overview of a game that I am excited about.  It's been awhile since I reviewed anything.  There's more cool stuff in these rules that I didn't touch on, but for something that I bought on an impulse I'm very pleased with my purchase.  Can't wait to play these rules again, though I will have to.  Stupid never ending house chores. 

Thanks for reading.