By Mike B

We left our usual gaming haunt to visit Bristol Independent Gaming for a “On Bloody Ground” Gamesday. Steve and Joel were early adopters and I had only played once before but just what was all the fuss about???

I think it fair to say that the rules are very much in the mould of Warhammer Ancient battles but that is no bad thing of course. The wargames armies are individually based and rely upon a unit sabot to gain combat advantages.

The game mechanisms are easy to pick up but are very bloody indeed. Firepower is awesome and multiple combats in the same turn mean that units rapidly start disappearing.

The authors David and Daniel Toone were present on the day and were great hosts. Jenny and Phil Turner ably assisted proceedings and kept things moving apace. It was such a welcoming atmosphere and it did remind me that the Dice Studz should visit Bristol more often. ( thanks to Big Jim too of course!)

I faced Dan Toone ( star of WiP YouTube shorts) and his Irish. My Viking hussars with double handed axes made short work of the advancing Irish but my rightwing was under pressure for the first half of the game.

I was making good progress in the centre and my cavalry mowed down the Irish archers on my left. But, Dan manoevered his javelin armed Bonnachts with alacrity……

It was the end of the game. The Vikings formed shieldwall and contented themselves with the slaughter so far. The Irish counter attack had been blunted and I had won a minor victory!

It was Phil’s Normans in the second game and that meant super warrior knights! Thankfully Phil put his weaker units in front of his mounted knights and a spoiling attack managed to slice through these units before we had to face the wrath of the Norman horse!

It had been a great day. The morale implications of units breaking can be deadly. At one time the Normans lost five knights due to morale checks without raising a spear in anger. It was enough to give me second place in the tourney overall! There was great prize support and left Steve, Joel and I all looking forward for the next Gamesday.