Standing Stone Studio over at Lead Adventure Forum pointed out this handy site for Midgard players. Mogsymakes provides a couple of Force Creators, a playsheet some sample armies and the latest errata to the rules. The Force creators are particularly handy. If you are playing the rules or considering if they would apply to your favorite period the Force Creators are very exciting. Take a look!
In yet another round of Midgard playtesting The Housemartin and I sat down to play a very similar game to the last one. Housemartin is one of the best rules-analysts that I know, he has a capacious memory and a swift kenning of the implications of rules on the manner in which the game plays. He has had the rules in his hands for a couple of weeks so I fully expected a learning experience as we played. We had resolved to fully check the text of the rules as we played to ensure that we understood the rules and that we conducting the game in compliance with them.
Even with the large armies and constant rules checking we were done inside three and a half hours. I had decided to take pictures after each player activation was completed rather than at the and of a full turn to better illustrate the action. In all the pictures south is to the left. The battle narrative is told from the position of the Saxon commander (me).
A little while back The Housemartin found the Axis & Allies Air War game. He got some truly lovely model planes (pre-painted, my favorite sort!) and we played it several times after our usual game. The rules are simple to understand and easy to play, needless to say they were well-received. Of course we all wanted to expand the horizons of the game. Upon looking into the situation further it turned out that the game had been discontinued some time ago and the model planes now came at a premium.
I offered to give 3D printing the desired aircraft a try and began digging about on the internet to find free STL files of the desired aircraft. It took a bit but I found the files, re-scaled them and printed them out. Out of boredom I painted them and found decals suitable to our purpose. All that remains is to drill a hole in the underside to accept the post from the base.
I have long held an interest in the period commonly called the "Dark Ages" (I prefer The Heroic Age) and have equally sought a rules set that, to my mind, would reflect combat in that age. Coming from the era of WRG dominance I first sought comfort in crushingly detailed rules (which often gave the gamer more detailed knowledge of the status of troops that any general of the era could hope for) before breaking with that idea with Tactica and then the unique Dark Ages Infantry Slog found in the original iteration of Wargames Illustrated. These both provided entirely different mechanisms and came closer to my goal but lacked the feeling that I got from reading the Viking Sagas and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Leaders were larger than life in those stories. Then along came SAGA.
SAGA promised much; leadership-driven combat, small units, a lot of characterization. I gave it a try, I wanted it to work, but walked away unsatisfied. Tiny units whizzing around the battlespace on their own, only one hero (in most cases), and the games looked nothing like the battles described in the chronicles of the era. Add to that I had to learn all of the "trick rules" that applied to my army AND all the trick rules of any potential opponent. Oh, and I hate custom dice.
Hail Caesar is great for large disciplined armies but simply doesn't cut it for Dark Ages. It has some good ideas and the neat special rules make it possible to customize units, but the leaders are bland. We tried for years but again were left unhappy.
Lion Rampant provided more unit types than SAGA and was dead simple to learn and play but ended up too "gamey" for my taste. I enjoyed it and still play from time to time but in no way assume that it has any semblance to historical combat.
Needless to say when I first spotted Midgard on the shelf at my local Brick & Mortar I didn't expect much. At first glance I wasn't particularly impressed. But, as I read more about it, I went back and picked up a copy. This seemed to have everything I was looking for. Leaders and Heroes figured large in every step of the game. The mechanics were simple to learn and made sense. Special rules allowed to customize both leaders and units. The morale system emphasized army cohesion and the importance of leaders being seen to lead from the front. All the best bits of the many prior rules sets seemed to have coalesced in this one book. I was intrigued.
