Vikings versus Greenies - Song of Blades and Heroes

When my brother dropped by at the weekend, we played a couple of games of Song of Blades and Heroes. I fielded my totally unsuccessful Viking force, while my brother took to the field with his Orcs and Goblins. The games were interesting but highlighted how random the commands can be. My force consisted of 5 Vikings with a mix of missile and hand weapons, and a heroic leader. My brother's force consisted of about eight or so Orcs and goblins with a mix of archers and melee troops, led by a tough leader.

Game 1 - Set-up


The first scenario included a place of magic on the board with bonus victory points for occupying it with a magic-user. Neither of us had a magic-user so the game came down to driving the enemy from the field. I felt sure that the Orcs would win by weight of numbers. As it happened, poor command rolls led to the Orcs being driven screaming from the field.

Game 1 - Orcs being driven screaming from the field


The second game was an all-out battle to kill the enemy. It had the same result for the same reasons. Patrick (my brother) had real problems with his command rolls, which resulted in the Orcs being outmanoeuvred by the more tactically astute Vikings. The Orcs were not able to bring their greater numbers to bear effectively and so they lost.

I felt that the second game more than the first was lost by the Orcs through poor command rolls rather than won by me through tactical genius. However, in both cases the better quality troops won by virtue of failing fewer command rolls. So, why have my Vikings always lost to Steve's Teutonic Knights? :-)