A playtest of 'Midgard'

 'Midgard' is the name of a set of rules written by James Morris which will hopefully be published at some future point. I am very grateful to James for allowing me to become one of his play testers as Midgard is aimed at 'Heroic' gaming; just my sort of game. Their are several army lists already ranging from a generic Dark Age list, Mythical Norse, Heroic Greek and Late Medieval to quite Tolkien flavoured Elf and Dwarf lists etc... In other words, everything I could ever want! 

So today's game was to give the rules a good run through and a solid test. I opted to use my Arthurian/Romano British era 28mm collection supplemented by some of Ian's figures too.  

This photo shows some of my collection of figures along with a few of the tokens I have collected for use in the game. The red and white glass beads are used to represent a forces 'Reputation'. You can win or lose Reputation by your deeds and actions in the game. The mdf 'stars' we used to represent individual's 'Mighty Deed's'. These are used each turn to help your heroes fight or inspire their troops and the mdf 'arrows' depict which units are charging or winning melee's.  

So we noble, heroic few of the regular 'Settle and District' (SaD) wargamers deployed our forces and set to. We chose scenario 1 (aiming for 6 turns) from those in the rulebook, a straightforward clash of troops that can potentially start with a heroic challenge.

Our battle is set in 5th century Northern Britain with Aliortus the Romano British Warlord (me) defending his lands from Barbarian incursions. The Barbarians (Ian and Nigel) were led by their land hungry Warlord, Cynric the Saxon. Cynric has been causing trouble due to his beguilement by Morgana Le Fey. To counter her evil influence the Merlin himself has come to Aliortus's aid. (a good excuse to test a few of the magic spells). 

A quick shot of deployment. We tried the heroic challenge with Ian's Warlord taking on my level 2 hero who, to our amazement, won the duel. We then decided to ignore this for a first game as we did not want the Barbarians to be without  their Leader for the whole game. So we started again. With the dice telling us that I was the attacker. 

First main action of the game came in turn 2 when the opposing light cavalry units clashed on the hill on my right flank. The barbarians won the first melee but then my light cavalry were able to destroy them and went crashing on into the skirmish unit pushing them back into the woods. 

Meanwhile on the right flank my cavalry rode towards the Barbarian line boldly led by Aliortus him self. A move he came to regret. The Barbarians trait of 'Today we fight to win' really helped them in melee. 

Not even his Mighty Deeds (the star tokens) could save Aliortus from being pushed back. 

 

The centre was a huge clash of infantry with the Barbarians having the edge on the right and myself on the left. Morganna tried to cast 'Wall of Mist' and failed whilst Merlin was able to use his protection spell to good effect. (Magic is simple to cast with a good range of effects and also the odd 'miscast penalty). Morganna was able to curse one of my heroes later in the game.  

The right flank was falling to the Barbarians but it was a mighty tussle all round. 

(Combat is quick, but can be brutal and Ian and Nigel were soon working things out just from the QRS even though they had never read the rules). 

Turns 4 and 5 suddenly saw melee turn my way although both sides were starting to lose units and were running low on Reputation Points. By the end of turn 5 however, the Barbarians were on -1 Reputation whilst I was reduced to zero so a very close run thing. 

Conclusion (how did we find the rules and were they fun?): 

The basic rules are very quick and easy to pick up. I was the only one who had actually read the rules (reading a pdf of the rules three times to be ready for this game sent me quite cross eyed!) but the other players soon knew how to move, shoot and fight so the basic's are quick and easy to pick up. The subtly of the rules comes in understanding the flow of the game with it's unique Turn Sequence and also when to use ones Mighty Deeds and other abilities granted by the many and varied Traits that the Heroes can be equipped with. The quick reference sheet is very useful. It is clear and well written, making the appropriate sections easy to find. Magic worked well and is suitably subtle and low level

Did we have fun, yes we did, so much so that we aim to play again next week and Ian is going to rebase his figures to match mine. There are probably a few things we may have got a bit wrong but I am sure a quick re-read of some sections of the rules will soon put us right. James is to be congratulated on producing a cracking game.