Chariots and Cars

Adrian, FG and I met up for the first of what we hope to be a monthly wargaming session today. My plan for these monthly sessions is to run two multi-player games each time.

The first game we played was the new edition of Tribal. I set up two sides, each with one Warlord and three units, and it was a straight-up fight.

FG's warlord made an impetuous charge into the enemy line, and while he scattered the enemy marksmen unit, he was in turn charged by Adrian's warlord and was killed.

For the second game we played a three-player game of Gaslands. My buggy took some damage early in the game, but soon took the lead while Adrian and FG's cars got into a ramming contest.

I maintained the lead until I made a mistake and approached the third gate on the wrong side and had to slow down, allowing FG's car to close the gap.

In the final turns of the game Adrian gave up trying to win the race and instead came after my car.

Literally just one move away from the finishing line my buggy was rammed and flipped into the gantry, wrecking the vehicle while FG's car limped to a win.

As with the previous sessions it was a blast, and we are planning to play again in the future, hopefully with more players and vehicles.

The next session is scheduled in three weeks, when we hope to try out Xenos Rampant (which I was a playtester for) and The Relief of Luckpore.

Cutting Edge Miniatures

With the release of the second edition of the Tribal rules, I decided to finally paint up the two units of Bronze Age figures from Cutting Edge Miniatures this week.

The Cutting Edge range seems to be a little all over the place, with the skirmishers shown above being larger and more pleasing to the eyes than the spearmen or the Sea Peoples I painted earlier. Add this to the fact that the other miniatures in my collection come from Redoubt, Eureka, and Newline, it means that they do look rather mismatched side-by-side - but I cannot summon the effort to redo the period with figures from one single range.

The new edition of Tribal will have rules specific to the Bronze Age and chariots, so I am looking forward to receiving my copy. Stay tuned for a review here.

Tribal Trojan War variant

A rather low resolution photo from today's game (yes, I have a cheap handphone), but when you are hanging out with old friends, getting high quality photos of the game, or even the game itself, is not a top priority.

We finally got to try out the Trojan War rules modifications I made to the Tribal game today. We played a small game, with two chariots and two units of foot on each side. My Hero was the first to fall to wahj's Hero, who in turn fell to a unit of foot. Martin's Chief then dismounted, stripped one set of armour, loaded it onto his chariot and ordered his driver to take it back to camp, then stripped the other set of armour, commandeered my chariot, and drove off, with fg's Chief powerless to stop him. The number of Honour points both sides had at the end was equal, but we thought Martin's side won.

The rules seem a little broken, since Heroes and Chiefs are vulnerable to only missile and thrown weapons when they are mounted, but they have to dismount to strip armour, which made them vulnerable. I suppose in future games we need more foot units, including at least one unit of missile troops on each side.

After the game we talked about other projects, and decided that we should perhaps finally get a game of aeronef going. I have in fact been having thoughts of that recently, and I have a bit of a headstart with my Dystopian Wars Ottoman ships. We are all of the opinion that whatever set of rules we choose should be simple, so if you have any suggestion, do let us know in the comments.

Eureka Miniatures Bronze Age Greeks and Cutting Edge Miniatures Sea Peoples

I resumed work on my Trojan Wars project last weekend and managed to have a few more units painted.

The first was this chariot from Eureka Miniature's Bronze Age Greek line. These have a classic Eureka chunky look, and paint up nicely. The rail chariot is an interesting piece, and requires you to actually bend the rails to fit the base of the chariot. It makes for an easier, sturdier construction, actually.

I wanted to get dismounted versions of the same characters, but the foot figures come with head options; Nic was kind enough to ensure that the heads that came in my pack were the same as those of the riders.

I also painted this Sea Peoples chariot from Cutting Edge Miniatures, which sell their  stuff through Warlord Games.

They are smaller in scale than Eureka's figures, and have a slimmer look.

I painted up a unit of foot figures too. The figure with the blue shield in the middle is actually a third rider from the chariot pack, but I decided to base him on foot to serve as the dismounted version of the hero.

I still have two more units from Cutting Edge to paint - a unit of Early Achaean spearmen and a unit of Sea Peoples Levy javelinmen - but with four chariots done I have enough to playtest the Trojan Wars variant of Tribal.

Red Box Dwarves... kinda

I'm going to touch up the eyes on these guys later, but here are the twelve Red Box dwarves I got from the kickstarter Tre Manor held a while back.

Kinda.

The torsos come from Red Box, but I didn't like the heads and I wanted these guys to be armed with spears. Some trading got me the heads and spear arms from Gripping Beast's Dark Age Warriors box set, and I was in business.

Now while assembling these figures, I realised why dwarves "in real life" didn't use spears or polearms: the distance between your hand and the ground affects how much length you can manage "above" your hand. Sure you can manage to hold a 15-foot pike, but that takes two hands and it isn't really a weapon you can use in a skirmish.

With these guys I now have enough "irregular" dwarves to make a Riot campaign viable. Plus they are always useful for fantasy RPGs.

One reason why I pushed myself to finish these guys is because I have decided to back the latest Frostgrave Nickstarter so I can get my hands on the multi-part plastic barbarians. Barbarians, like dwarves, are useful figures to have for most fantasy settings, so I expect quite good return on investment on those. I would like to paint them with black-and-white body paint like the Avvars depicted in the Dragon Age RPG, but whether I can manage that is an unknown.

If you are looking for some generic fantasy barbarians, do head over the North Star's page.

Newline 28mm Hittite Guardsmen

These are the Newline Hittite Guardsmen that I bought to beef up my Trojan warband. It is within the bounds of historical possibilities that the Hittites were allies to the Trojans, and their proportions, arms and armour are stylistically close enough to those of the Redoubt figures.

They have the characteristic chunky Newline look, and are pretty good casts with just some flash in the areas between the limbs and the trunk. The weapons and shields come loose and the right hands have to be drilled to take the weapons.

With these done, I have four units (three of melee, one of missile) and more than enough leader figures for them. I am tempted to say that I will not add any more units to this force, but then it just occurred to me that if the Hittites can send a unit of infantry, then why not a hero in a chariot?

Rules modifications for Tribal for the Trojan War

Other than the rules for using tarot I shared in the previous post, here are some rules which I plan to add or modify to lend a more Homeric flavour to our games.

1. Playing area

As the tarot cards are larger than poker cards, the playing area is 4' x 4' instead of 3' x 3'.

2. Throwing Weapons

All Chiefs and Heroes gain the Throwing Weapon skill, and may in addition also make an Throwing Weapon attack after a Throwing Weapon attack has been resolved against them by a charging enemy.

A Chief or Hero mounted in a chariot with a driver may perform a special Throwing Weapon attack at another Chief/Hero in a chariot during his activation at the end of his movement if he started the activation mounted on the chariot. This attack has the range of one long edge (measured from any point from the chariot base to the base of the target chariot) and is otherwise resolved as a standard Throwing Weapon attack; the target Chief/Hero may also resolve a Throwing Weapon Attack after the attack.

3. Chariots

Chiefs and Heroes begin the game in their chariots, which each comes with a driver. A chariot may only carry up to one Chief/Hero and one driver and one Armour token. A chariot is considered manned if there is a Chief/Hero or a driver in it. If there is no Chief/Hero or driver in it, a chariot is unmanned.

If a hit from a Missile or Throwing Weapon is scored on a chariot when the Chief/Hero and the driver are both in the chariot, the owning player may choose which figure takes the hit. The driver may not perform any attack, but if he receives a hit from a Missile Weapon or a Throwing Weapon, he is removed. A manned chariot may not be attacked in Melee - if charged, the charging unit is moved into contact with the chariot's base and the chariot is moved one long edge away from the chargers.

If the Chief/Hero is mounted, the chariot is activated during the Chief/Hero's activation. If the Chief/Hero dismounts, the driver receives an activation card immediately. If a Chief/Hero mounts the chariot, the driver loses his activation card the following turn. A driver may not dismount from a chariot.

A chariot moves one long edge during normal movement, and may Sprint, but it may only move in open terrain. As a chariot's base is much longer than a foot figure's base, this gives a chariot a longer movement than a foot figure. A chariot may only move if it is manned. If a Chief or Hero is manning the chariot, he may not make a Throwing Weapon attack.

A Chief or Hero may dismount from a chariot and Walk during an activation, or Walk and mount a chariot during an activation. A Chariot may not Sprint during a turn when a Chief or Hero mounts or dismounts it.

3.1 Capturing Chariots

An unmanned chariot may be captured by the opposing side. A foot unit captures an unmanned chariot by ending its activation in base-to-base contact with the chariot; a free driver figure is placed in the chariot and receives an activation card immediately.

A captured chariot may be 're-captured' by the original side if it subsequently becomes unmanned again.

A captured chariot that is moved off the table via the player's home edge gains the player 2 Honour Points.

4. Stripping and Capturing Armour

A killed Chief or Hero may have his armour stripped and taken as a prize. To strip an enemy Chief/Hero of his armour, a Chief/Hero must spend one activation in base-to-base contact with the killed Chief/Hero - at the end of the activation, place an Armour token next to the Chief/Hero - he is now carrying the Armour.

The Armour token then moves with the Chief/Hero; while carrying Armour, a foot figure may not move faster than Walk. If the player moves the Armour token off his home edge in a chariot, he gains 2 Honour Points if the Armour was stripped off a Hero, and 3 Honour Points if it was stripped off a Chief, whether the Armour had been stripped from a Chief/Hero from his own side or the opposing side. If he leaves the table with the Armour on foot, no Honour Point is awarded.

A Chief/Hero carrying Armour may not charge but may fight normally when charged. If he loses a combat, he drops the Armour token onto the field/tabletop before he retreats. The dropped Armour may then be picked up again by a Chief/Hero figure that moves into base-to-base contact with the token.

To place an Armour in a chariot, the Chief/Hero carrying the armour must end his activation in base-to-base contact with a chariot. A Chief/Hero does not have to mount a chariot to place the Armour into the chariot - if he mounts the chariot while carrying the Armour, the Armour is in the chariot. A chariot may move normally while carrying Armour. A chariot may only carry one Armour token.


Again, feedback is welcomed. Thank you.

Olympus Tarot and using tarot cards for Tribal

Now it's no secret that I like the Tribal rules, but that's not to say that I don't think it can be spiced up a little, especially since the Trojan War is not specifically covered in the rules.

One of the things that occurred to me was that divine intervention in the Iliad can perhaps be represented by the addition of special cards to the deck, and that a good source of an 'off the shelf' deck of cards with special cards is of course tarot cards. Some googling turned up the Olympus Tarot, which comes in the standard tarot count of four suits of 14 minor arcana cards and 22 major arcana cards. Each card depicts a god (for the major arcana) or a scene from a tale from the Greek mythology (for the minor arcana); many are familiar, but I can't tell what some are supposed to depict because the manual that came with the deck is in Russian.

It is relatively simple to use the minor arcana to replace the standard deck: the four suits (sword, wand, cup and pentacle) represent the four suits (clubs, spades, hearts and diamonds), with values running from 1 to 14.

The major arcana required a little thought.

As the major arcana each represent one Greek god, I thought I would model the effect of each card based on the manner in which the gods intervened in the Iliad. But as not all the gods intervened in the war, and some intervened only for one side, I cannot use all the cards. My current idea is to just include eight of the major arcana, to be split between the two players: the Trojan player will add Aphrodite, Ares, and Apollo to his deck, and the Greek player will add Athena, Hera, and Poseidon to his deck; one each of the remaining two cards, Hephaestus and Zeus, will be dealt hidden to the two players, such that each player has a deck of 60 cards. Alternatively, both players may each receive one Zeus card and one Hephaestus card. The Card Pools rule will be used.

The major arcana cards may be played as a 'numbered' card, in which case they are of the suit that the player chooses, and beats all minor arcana cards (but does not Overpower) if played in combat. If two major arcana cards are played, the card with the lower number in the sequence of the major arcana beats one of a higher number.

The major arcana cards can also be played as an event cards outside of the normal situations called for in the main rules (called a divine intervention) and they have the following effects:

Zeus (I): Zeus forbids the gods to intervene! Played after a divine intervention - negates the effect of the divine intervention.

Hera (II): Hera seduces Zeus! Played after Zeus has been played - negates the effect of Zeus.

Aphrodite (III): Aphrodite rescues her favourite! Played when a Chief or Hero has been charged or is in combat - removes the Chief or Hero in combat and places him three long sides away.

Ares (IV): Ares fills a captain with battle fury! Played just before combat - a Chief or Hero in combat draws two extra cards for his combat hand.

Athena (VIII): Athena encourages her champion! Played when a Chief or Hero charges - the Chief or Hero may cast a Throwing Weapon twice* or gains another long side to move into combat.

Poseidon (IX): Poseidon rouses the troops! Played after completing the activation of a friendly unit - another unactivated friendly unit may activate immediately.

Hephaestus (XI): Armour of Hephaestus! Played when a Chief or Hero receives a hit - the hit is negated, even if it was an overpowering hit.

Apollo (XIX): Apollo thwarts my enemies! Played when a Chief or Hero is charged - the enemy unit that has declared a charge against the Chief or Hero must end its move a short side away from the Chief/Hero instead.

Once played as a divine intervention, major arcana cards are not re-shuffled back into the deck when all the cards are played, but are kept aside.

That's all I have for now. In the next post I will share some other additional rules I am planning for Homeric warfare.

(* - I plan to modify the Throwing Weapon rule such that all Chiefs and Heroes gain the Throwing Weapon skill and may in addition also cast a Throwing Weapon against a Chief or Hero after the charging Chief/Hero has resolved his attack.)

Mid-Year Review

As we reach the mid-point of the year, I feel the need to take stock and see what the rest of the gaming year may hold for my little group.

The two Chain of Command campaigns are progressing at a reasonable pace: we are two games into each campaigns and I have almost all the terrain necessary for the upcoming games made.

On the 28mm skirmish front the Immortal rules are still in oblivion, but thankfully Tribal has stepped up to the plate. The photo above shows most of the figures I have painted for a Trojan faction, and they will be facing wahj's Trojans/Greeks and fg's Crocodile Games Amazons when they are painted. I think it says a lot about Tribal that it made me complete a project that has been stalled for over two years in just two months. In fact, I have ordered some Hittite Royal Guards from Newline so I can have another unit of melee troops. I have purchased the Olympus tarot decks, and once they arrive I want to start making up rules for using them.

The other event that we have been waiting for this year is the delivery of the Heavy Gear kickstarter, which will start shipping next month. What came as a surprise to me though was Martin coming on board with the project and getting himself a copy of the Horzion Wars rules and some Dropzone Commander figures too. But even before the Heavy Gear stuff arrive I should have painted up the Dropzone Commander stuff that I already have to be able to field a small Resistance force. With luck we should be able to play our first games in the last quarter of this year.

Two other side projects I hope to work on this year are for Empire of the Dead and Dystopian Wars.

For the first I am planning to paint up a 'not-Penny Dreadful' faction using the West Wind figures fg passed me. It may be some time before we have enough figures for a campaign, but I guess VSF is a period that we will come back to eventually.

For the second I am doing some terrain work. I have earlier planned to build an island fort based on a real-life Genoese fort in Turkey, but the construction proved to be beyond my skills. I used the buildings I bought for that project to instead build a harbour-fort based on a Turkish town I visited once, and hope to get that completed soon. Perhaps I will work on some other terrain project after that and gradually acquire the know-how to build the island fort eventually.

Redoubt Trojan War archers in tunic

Here is the last unit in my Trojan War project. I have a few casualty figures primed and started, but those aren't essential for the game.

With the painting out of the way, the next step is to come up with some rules so that we can use the major arcana in a deck of tarot cards to represent divine intervention and special events. This is perhaps best done by assigning a game event to the scene depicted on each card, but unfortunately there seems to be some trouble with eBay, Paypal, or the seller, and I cannot complete the purchase I made. Maybe I should consult the oracle for some advice...

Redoubt Trojan War spearmen

Another week, another unit. The only good thing I can say about these figures is that at least I have only one more unit (of archers) to go and then a few casualty figures, which are really optional.

What is driving me is the fact that I love the Tribal rules and I think I will enjoy playing a Trojan War themed game (or games) with the appropriate figures. In fact, I am now wondering if it is worth paying for a couple decks of Greek mythology-themed tarot cards to use for the game, which will allow me to incorporate some themed special rules.

I am also thinking about terrain items which will add flavour to the tabletop. Baueda has some very nice Mycenaean buildings, but they are in 15mm. Any suggestion will be welcomed. Thank you.

The phalanx seen from the front

View from the figures' left, showing shield patterns. These guys must really have worried about being shot in the back...

Redoubt Lukka Warriors

Five more figures done. These are Lukka swordsmen, and will serve as a short weapon unit for Tribal games.

Next up will be some Trojan infantry with spears. Slow and steady does it...

Sarpedon and friend

My Trojan War project is still progressing at snail's place. Today's addition depict Sarpedon and his chariot driver on foot. Or at least they are in my books.

They wield more substantial swords than Hector and his friend, but along with the five other Lukka swordsmen I have lined up next, they are poor casts and needed a lot of cleaning.

Nevertheless, I will for now continue to work at them with the aim of eventually painting the remaining two dozen figures I have. Hopefully by then the Tribal community would have come up with rules for chariots!

Tribal games

A bad omen as two jokers are played!

Adrian, fg and I got together to play Tribal today. Adrian and I played the Revenge scenario, with him fielding his dwarves against my Night Goblins. He fielded his Slayer champion as a Berserker hero, while I took a unit of archers for a total of four warrior units.

With more terrain and units this time the game was more tactical. My gobbos were doing very well until the Blue Shield units moved in to defend their wounded Chieftain (one wound from death!), whereupon they were attacked and wiped out. It turns out that they were the target of the dwarves' vengeance, and Adrian won the game by a single Honour Point!

After the game we cleared the terrain and turned the tabletop into an arena.

I made stat cards for some of the gladiator figures I already have the evening before: printed an arena backdrop, posed the figures in front of it, then made the cards with an online Magic card maker.

The point costs didn't allow an even split, so I invented a system of drafting where we took turns to buy from the stable of gladiators, with any leftover Honour (or should it be Fame?) points kept for victory purposes. There were no rules for multi-players in the rules as written, but it was a simple matter of each player drawing a card for initiative.

As predicted, the game played very differently from a standard battle. The presence of armour made things more unpredictable and exciting. We each had three gladiators, and it was a free-for-all. In the end it came down to two of fg's gladiators against one of Adrian's, and against the odds the lone survivor of his ludus defeated both opponents to emerge overall champion.

The game was a lot of fun, and would have been even better had there been more specific rules for say the net or kicking sand into an opponent's eyes (Dirty Tricks?). Perhaps the rules can be expanded for gladiatorial combat with rules for running a ludus, including recruiting for gladiators, advancement, and accounting for winnings and fame?

We ended the afternoon's gaming with another game of Small World, which Adrian too won. So all in all it was a great day out for Adrian.

Tribal test game and This Town Ain't Big Enough for the 2 to 4 of Us

The elves seek revenge against the dwarves, who have cut down one of their precious trees!

Fg, Martin and I got together for games, and I wanted to try out the Tribal rules. As we don't have any historical figures from the army lists covered in the rules, we decided to proxy using our LOTR figures.

We played the simple Revenge scenario: fg drew the card for attacker, and secretly picked one of my units to kill. He picked two heroes and two warriors units and upgraded his chief and heroes, while I picked a hero and two warrior units, and upgraded all my units.

With no missile unit on either side, we made a beeline for each other, with me aiming to let my upgraded warriors do some damage against fg's regular warriors early.

Two bands of warriors clash!

My unit with throwing weapons charged in and wiped the elven warriors out with their good hand of cards - fg did not draw any card higher than a 4! - but they were charged by the elven chief in the next activation and in turn destroyed. As it turned out this was the unit they have sworn revenge against - the elves are up in Honour points.

At this point fg should probably have pulled back, their honour satisfied. But we played on and my other unit of warriors similarly destroyed the other elven unit, and the characters were becoming outnumbered. Fg then decided to retreat, and the final tally saw the dwarves up by just a few points.

At the scale of the game and with a straightforward objective, the strategy was not complex. I did enjoy the combat mini-game and the decision-making involved. Luck can be a major factor in combat though, but presumably the use of cards instead of dice means that on the whole, your luck will average out in a more predictable fashion than with dice.

In future games I will try to use more warrior units and also missile units and see how that will play out.

While we were playing Tribal, Martin learned how to play a tile game my brother passed to me and we ended the session with three rounds of it.

This Town Ain't Big Enough for the 2 to 4 of Us is a fencing game where players take turn placing tiles with the aim of fencing up areas where they have the most number of "brands" within. The catch is you score a number of victory points equal to the number of the next most numerous brand, so if you had four brands in the area but only one of another brand or brands, you only score one point!

There must be some mathematical reasoning behind the way the tiles were designed, probably some topology stuff, and each game was close but fg won all three games, suggesting that there is a knack to this.

It's a fun game that's quick to learn and has good replayability, and is inexpensive to boot, so if fencing game is your cup of tea, do get yourself a copy of this game.

Tribal - skirmish combat game

I may not always judge a set of wargame rules by its cover, but sometimes a good cover makes me want to have a closer look.

After seeing the cover of Tribal on TMP, I followed the link to Wargames Vault, where you can watch a video of how the combat system works. The system looked good, and I thought it would work for a Homeric warfare skirmish game (something which I have been trying to find a set of rules for).

The rules have lists for Maori (well, duh!), Aztec, Viking, and Gladiatorial combat in detail, and also Iroquois, Japanese Heian, and cavemen warfare in less detail. I posted a question on the TMP thread asking if the rules would work for Homeric warfare, and the author replied that it would, so I bought a copy. True story.

So what do you get for your US$10?

The pdf file is 32 pages long, and fully coloured throughout, which may tax your printer. There are photos of figures in action and "black-and-white" line drawings and pictures of tribal "totems" for atmosphere throughout the pages. The cover, period fluff, acknowledgements and contents take up six pages, and then we are into the rules themselves, which are only nine pages. Scenarios take up four pages, optional rules two, and then the army lists are covered in nine pages. A page for photos helps to round the document to an even number, and the Quick-Reference Sheet makes up the last page.

Now off the bat I like the rules because it seems to fit exactly what I have been looking for: heroic warfare with different tiers of combatants, where heroes are moved as individuals and rank-and-file warriors in units, an interesting and tactical combat system, and the tracking of honour or fame for the heroes. The size is also what I thought was optimal for such a game: up to three heroes and four warbands (of five figures each). So if those are also things you are looking for, read on...

Tribal is a skirmish game, which means one figure = one person. The playing area is 3' x 3', with 1" on the tabletop representing 2 yards or so. Time scale is not mentioned, but a game lasts typically 6 to 8 turns.

Now if you have seen the video I mentioned above, then you will know that the game is played with (at least) two standard decks of playing cards instead of dice. The cards determine initiative, resolve combat, and are even used for measuring movement (like in the game Pirates of the Spanish Main).

Combat is clever and presents a game-within-a-game in itself. When a hero or unit enters combat, it draws a 'combat hand' of several cards depending on his/its status, number of wounds taken/number of warriors in the unit, as well as any modifiers. The heroes/units then fight up to five rounds of combat by playing a card each round from the combat hand to determine the winner, with the player having the advantage playing his card after the opponent has revealed his card for the round. The higher card wins, but winning doesn't always cause a wound as red cards are Feint cards which do not do damage but allows the player to change the suit of a card played in the next turn; black cards deal damage, and depending on the type of weapon a hero/unit is armed with the suit also confer a bonus. Winning by a large margin can cause more than one wound. At the end of the combat rounds the number of rounds won by each side is tallied and the side with more wins wins the whole combat and forces the enemy to retreat, and gains Honour. One rule I really like is the Panic! rule, which makes a hero/unit with fewer cards than his/its opponent draw cards sight unseen to play against the opponent, representing a frantic attempt to fend off attacks - a panicked unit cannot cause damage.

As you can see, the choice of which card to play is key. Higher cards are of course more powerful, but they can be neutralised by the opponent's use of a red card, so you may want to play them only when you have the advantage, or if you are pretty sure that the opponent is out of high cards which may beat your high cards...

The other distinctive feature of Tribal is Honour, which is the currency for the game. Each player starts out with a set number of Honour points based on the scenario, and may/must spend a fraction of these on buying his warband. Honour is also used to purchase skills and upgrades for the heroes/units. The remainder is then used as currency during the game and in determining the winner. You may use Honour to perform dirty tricks to help you win a combat, but doing so of course brings dishonour and lowers your Honour total. Other than winning combats and achieving scenario objectives, some armies can also gain Honour by performing deeds like making the first kill of the battle or capturing enemy warriors. Maori warbands can also spend Honour to do the Haka, which grants them extra cards. The game ends after a number of turns specified by the scenario rule, when the player with more Honour is the winner, or if one side runs out of honour before that happens.

So overall the game looks like three games in one: you need to manoeuvre your forces as in a wargame, you need to fight the combats in mini-hands of a card game, and you need to play a resource management game by making sure that you spend your Honour wisely, from creating your warband to gambling with them during the actual battle itself. Now usually I do not like games with such "meta" aspects, but for Tribal they all seem to fit the theme, so I am keen to give it a try.

The army lists are fun to read, and cover a brief introduction to the army and the types of warriors/priests found in each army, a list of references, links to companies that make the figures for that army, and special rules for it. The gladiators game represent a rather different game from the standard game, as it has only heroes and no units, and there are additional rules for armour.

Having read through the rules, I am impressed enough by them to "unshelve" my Trojan War figures on my painting list. The rules unfortunately do not cover chariots and stripping of a fallen enemy's armour, but those are not deal-breakers for me.

Hopefully I can get the figures painted soon and play a test game.