It's been on the cards for a very long time, but I finally found the inspiration and energy to try out Sellswords and Spellslingers. I think it has taken so long because I know it is based around a similar system to Song of Blades and Heroes, which I did not get on with despite really wanting to. I mean, who would not want to like a simple and quick-to-play fantasy game? However, I took the effort to make the cards needed for play, because I love preparing for games, and finally sat down to read the rule book.
Five minutes later I was ready to play. I exaggerate, but it's a short rulebook and a little focus will see you finishing it super quick. Then I sat down to create my warband. I opted for the traditional mix of 1 fighter, 1 magic-user, 1 cleric and 1 thief scout. With 60 XP to divide between them, you really don't get a lot to spend on each figure. The magic-user cost nearly half of that just to have the ability to cast spells and their first spell. Thankfully, there were disadvantages that I could use to ensure they had skills enough to fulfil their roles. I gave the fighter the Impulsive disadvantage, the thief scout got Greedy, while the magic-user was Weak. That sorted my points out. On to set-up.
The scenario required my heroes to get from one side of the board to the other. Simple enough, thinks I. They started at the bottom of the above photo and would attempt to get to the top.
That is when the trouble started. Random placement of enemies resulted in too many of them being right next to my heroes. Then I rolled for activation. The magic-user fired a fireball at the troll. The fireball fizzled and the magic-user was out of magic for the rest of the game (a 1 on 1d20 will do that to you). The scout shot at the nearest orc. The monsters all charged and the melee began. The cleric and the fighter charged in and dealt out a few solid blows. More orcs started to turn up. The heroes advanced slowly through the bushes, but they not got more than a quarter of the way before the magic-user found herself beset by baddies, and expired messily. The cleric checked her. Yup, dead as a doornail. The heroes continued to advance slowly.
As our heroes made slow progress, the cleric fell next. Checking her money pouch, the scout found that she was still alive but limping badly. He helped her to her feet and lightened her load so that she could move more quickly. Pushing on, the scout suddenly found himself ambushed by an orc minion, who leapt out of a nearby bush and cut him down. The minion then took the cleric out of the fight before being cut down in turn by the fighter. By now the fighter was thoroughly confused and just stood there turning circles on the spot as the orcs charged. She defended as well as she could, but her armour did not hold, her shield got shattered and it was not long before she too lay on the ground with the rest of her party. They had failed.
Conclusions
Well, that was a trifle chaotic and really did not take that long at all. If I were more experienced with the rules, it would have been an even quicker defeat, but I spent a lot of time checking the rules. I made mistakes throughout the game, but the dice did not help. When your entire party fails their activation rolls so the monsters get multiple turns, you soon get overfaced. It's the same issue I faced with A Song of Blades and Heroes. I like games where you do not have total control of your troops, but this was too chaotic for my poor warband to survive.
So, what needs to happen next is that I play the game and make sure I get all the rules right. Then I can see if experience makes a difference to how well my party does. Understanding the interaction of the system and the dice in a practical way should help me decide how best to approach any given scenario. For this scenario, for example, I really should have focused on moving my troops instead of fighting the bad guys. The fewer turns my troops are on the table, the fewer opportunities there will be for the bad guys to activate.
This was fun, and relatively quick despite my inexperience, so I do want to try again. Assuming that all a games are this chaotic though, I am not sure if using Sellswords and Spellslingers as a campaign engine will be right for me. We shall see.
On the other hand, I could totally see using this as a simple system for a quick, cooperative, pick-up game with a friend, so there is that.
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