I'm late in getting this up, but last Saturday a few of us got together to playtest the Song of Drums and Tomahawks game Kevin and David are putting on at Fix Bayonets 2018. The six-player game set around 1640 has a force of Hurons trying to ambush a combined Dutch – Iroquois force that was making its way across the map.
Each group had 8 figures. The Native American groups had a leader, hero, two muskets, two bows, and two regular natives. The Dutch had a leader, a hero (both in armor with nasty halberds), and six muskets. I took one of the Huron groups.
The Dutch set up in the middle of the advance, with their Iroquois allies leading and bringing up the rear. Half the Hurons moved to hit the lead Iroquois unit, while the others (including my force) moved to hit the Dutch.
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| The lead Iroquois unit |
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| The dastardly Dutch boys |
We all started out in lines, so we could take advantage of group movement. Movement was a problem in our last game, so being able to move as a group was a benefit. As we got closer, individual warriors broke off from the group to start their attacks.
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| My Hurons moving into action |
I started out trading musket fire with the Dutch, with each of us losing one figure.
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| Opening shots |
The trailing Iroquois unit was having trouble moving. So, I closed with the Dutch, hoping to take out several of them before reinforcements arrived. However, the plan didn’t quite work, and I had my own movement troubles as the Iroquois arrived. We had a big melee in the middle where I combined with another Huron player to kill the Dutch leader. That was not an easy feat, since the Dutch armor protected them against, most native weapons. But I got a lucky roll with a primitive weapon for the killing blow. Unfortunately, I lost my leader to an attack from an Iroquois hero and had to fall back. By this time, I had lost about half my force and I decided to let the enemy come to me.
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| Moving to melee |
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| reinforcing Iroquois move up |
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| Big melee |
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| The Dutch leader goes down, forcing the other Dutch to fall back |
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| My turn to fall back |
Over in the middle of the table, the Huron were having good luck against the lead Iroquois unit, killing three and forcing the others back. The Hurons then came streaming around the longhouse to take on the on Dutch.
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| Lead Iroquois taking casualties |
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| Battle at the longhouse |
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| Skirmish in the middle |
There was a lot of back and forth fighting, but in the end, the Dutch and their allies held their ground. By this time pretty much everyone had lost half their force and we decided to call the game. It was a very bloody game, but we decided the remaining Dutch and Iroquois would probably be able to make it across the board.
Overall it was a fun game. I like the basic Song of … system from Ganesha Games. I haven’t played any of the other variants yet, but it seems like a good set of skirmish rules. It will be interesting to see what changes they make for the rules where everyone is armed with ranged weapons.
