I received Fantasy Fistful of Lead for Christmas and was much enthused by it. The layout is easy to read. The cover is teeming with nostalgia in the way it reflects the cover of my old Basic D&D rules from 40 years ago. And, I know that it will provide a nicely Hollywood-esque game, if my experience of Fistful of Lead: Starfighters is anything to go by. So, I suggested to Steve, my formerly regular opponent before life intervened and got in the way, that we play FFoL when he announced that he was able to pop by for a game. This would be our first game in a bazillion years and I was excited to play against someone else. Time to design a quick warband and set things up.
Steve said he only had his 15mm figures available, so I dug mine out too and chose a group of 5 Elves, whose figures I liked the look of. I decided to play at 2/3 scale because the move distances make it look like all 15mm figures are The Flash when playing at full scale, so I printed out the templates at 66%. I printed a couple of reduced scale rulers so that we did not have to convert any of the measurements while playing. All set, so time to meet the gang.
The gang
Vicumion of the Ostentations, a veteran of many skirmishes and a legend in his own lunchtime, was the leader of this group. He was born to warfare and moved as easily in harness as out of it. Nothing phased him. He carried his own banner so that all would know where he was and where the great deeds were being done.
Indusium the Fundamental was second-in-command. A journeyman wizard of the wild, his favourite spell was the lightning bolt.
Aelfgar the Younger was a somewhat rash young man and a good defensive fighter.
Qwillim o' the Wilds was the gang's scout, moving quickly through the cover to find the enemy so the others could neutralise them.
Fengal Sharpeye provided the gang with good missile support; an indifferent swordsman but able to split an arrow in two at the butts from 100 paces.
The situation
Human interlopers had been spotted heading into the borders of Brambly Edge Forest, Vicumion's home. Vicumion knew that he must take his Elves and kick them out or the place would soon be full of lumberjacks working all day to remove the trees and keeping everyone awake all night with their singing. Plotting a course towards the interlopers, Vicumion and his gang crested a hill and spotted the humans on the other side of Windy Beck, near the ruined Temple of Whillowisp.
"Follow me," he yelled to his gang and charged forwards at full speed. Inspired by the bravery with which Vicumion ostentatiously waved his banner and drew attention to himself, the gang rushed forward eagerly too. The humans were more circumspect and cautious in their movements. Clearly they were intimidated from the outset! Their archer even hid behind a tree ... as if that would save him!
As the gangs neared each other, arrows flew to no effect, but Indusium blasted the enemy leader with a lightning bolt. The leader fell, stunned, but the enemy mage healed him and he was back on his feet all too quickly. Aelfgarr charged forward to engage an enemy swordsmen but found himself standing in the beck and on the back foot as the swordsman proved to have a keen edge.
Vicumion soon joined him. Overconfidence led to Vicumion being laid flat, but, fortunately, Indusium was able to heal him quickly and Vicumion was soon laying about him with his blade once more to the swordsman's detriment.
As the fight ebbed and flowed, the two leaders soon found themselves in combat. It was a hard fight. Vicumion's experience barely helped him against the human's youth and speed, but it did tell in the end and the human was knocked flat and wounded once more, even when one of the human retinue ganged up on Vicumion with the leader.
Meanwhile, Qwillim had engaged the enemy archer and knocked him out. The enemy mage heated Aelfgar's armour to the heat of the forge and Aelfgar collapsed unconscious as a result. Qwillim retaliated and knocked the mage flat. Unfortunately, the enemy mage got a lucky blow in from the ground and knocked Qwillim out.
In revenge, Fengal pierced the mage and laid him out in turn. With spells flying and blades blurring soon only two of the human warband were conscious, but both were wounded and scuttled away as fast as they could, using the oncoming night to make good their escape. The Elves held the field.
"Well," announced Vicumion, "they fought well, but I fought better! We'll not see them again in a hurry."
Aftermath
Vicumion's gang gained 3 renown.
Steve's gang gained 2 renown.
Aelfgar's and Qwillim's injuries were just flesh wounds. They will be back next scenario at full strength. No other figures in my warband need to roll because they were not wounded or out of the fight.
Steve has not rolled for his warband yet.
Thoughts and musings
Our game was characterised by a number of things. I failed every single armour save that I tried to make. Fortunately, the wound rolls generally only left my boys shaken, but, still, it was a tad frustrating. Steve made most of his armour saves, but suffered from high wound rolls.
Steve's leader had a trait that let him roll two dice and pick the better one. This seemed very useful, even against my veteran leader who rolled a d12 instead of the standard d10. My takeaway from this is that I need better d12s. I rolled low all too often.
My troops kept fumbling and throwing away their weapons! sigh!! Steve's never fumbled. On the other hand, I did manage to catch Steve's archer in melee with his bow in hand instead of a sword. We need a slightly better system for tracking who has which weapon in hand, because it makes a difference. I'm thinking weapon counters on the roster.
Speaking of rosters, several mistakes were made along the way with forgetting to apply traits. We need better rosters for tracking bonuses and penalties, so that we do not forget them. It is far too easy in the heat of the moment to forget these things. I shall work on this for my next game.
We made other mistakes with the rules, and I shall read them again to try to get it right. For our first game, I don't think we did badly. We got things mostly right or muddled through by agreeing a temporary solution until we can look it up. The rules were not hard to learn, and they are well laid out, but there are always details you forget. There were a couple of unclear areas, especially relating to magic. Hopefully, the reread will clear those up. I'm not sure if they were unclear purely because of our expectations. That is also a possibility.
The game was great fun. So much so, in fact, that I nearly completely forgot to take photos. The Fistful of Lead system works well, providing a nicely cinematic game with a lot going on. The card draw mechanism for activating figures is fun and nervewracking in equal measure, leaving you desperately hoping that you get the next activation or that your opponent does not get a special card that negates whatever you have just done. Combat was simple enough to adjudicate, even with multiple figures on one side being involved. With a game under my belt and a reread of the rules, the next game should go a lot better and more quickly. All in all, I look forward to playing FFoL again.
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