Medieval Tournament (5)

Last night I wrote a first version of the rules for my upcoming tournament game.

The format will be as follows:

• 
  
• We will start the melee with 16 knights. When 4 knights are out of action, the tournament starts over imagine it is the next day) with 12 knights. A third round with 8 knights, and a final round with 4 knights.
• Each player will receive cards for 4 knights (random, secret) at the start of the tournament.
  
• During the melee, a player can choose any knight he wants to activate (not necessarily a knight he is rooting for), and chooses an action from 1 of 3 playing cards for that knight. The cards are from a common activation pool and replenished after each activation.
• If a player knocks out a Knight, he gets 1 gold. The last 5 surviving knights receive 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 gold for the player who holds that card. Thus, a total of 30 gold will be handed out during the tournament.
• The idea is there will be some bluff as well as to who holds what knight in his hands.
  

The melee rules follow a simple format as well.

• Hex-based.
• Within a hex: knights can be in contact or not.
• All modifiers are on die type (D4 -> D6 -> D8 -> D10 -> D12 -> ...).

Summary sheet so far:

 

Medieval Tournament (4)

Coming Friday, we will play a "Grand Melee".

The format will be that each player will be able to control any knight during his turn, but every player will also have (in secret) a number knight assigned randomly to root for (and score victory points with). Thus, there will also be a form of meta-game, trying to figure out who is (secretly) backing which knight to gain victory.

I needed cards for each foot knight (players will receive 4 card at random at the start of the game). I photographed 16 of my foot knight miniatures, and made up some medieval looking names.

Medieval Tournament (3)

I found one more item in my wargaming library:

Again, I am merely reading it for inspiration to come up with my own rules.

Meanwhile, I have started setting up the table. The big area in the middle will be the "grand melee" area. There should be enough room for hex-based movement (since I think that movement and manoeuvre is the fun in most miniature wargames). The table will get more and more detailed over the coming weekend.

Medieval Tournament (2)

Some more inspiration for my medieval tournament game a week from now ...

I probably have more stuff lying around, we'll see what else we can dig up.

Medieval Tournament (1)

Next week the plan is to run a medieval tournament game for my gaming group.

I always had a fascination for medieval tournaments (see some previous photos of my heraldic knights here), but they're not always easy to turn into a good game. The typical joust (only one part of a tournament) always struck me as being too much rock-paper-scissors. Although a number of games have been published that recreate the medieval joust, it's unclear to me whether there are enough interesting decision points for the players to make.

So, it will not be a joust, but rather a "melee for all". A quick look into my magazine collection turned up some useful inspirational articles. A very useful one was published in Miniature Wargames (with Battlegames), issue 363.

The idea is that we start with 16 knights, and every knight is backed (in secret) by a player. We will fight several melee events (with elimination), and whoever survives in the end wins the tournament. I will of course hand out some additional victory points throughout the tournament, but I still have to come up with a good set of skirmish melee rules. I have some ideas already ...

But for now, I have time for some more historical research. Yesterday evening, I spend quite some time reading my TASCHEN copy of the Freydal Tournament book. Inspirational stuff!

TSA "Bring and Sell"

Sadly, as an aftereffect of Brexit, the Belgian wargaming convention scene as we knew it has  more or less collapsed (Crisis gone, Warcon gone, ...). So it's back to small scale club days.

One such event took place yesterday. Tin Soldiers of Antwerp organized a "Bring and Sell" event, an ideal opportunity for everyone to dump their old stuff.

The clubhouse was packed, a lot of people showed up (more pictures here).

This was my wargaming loot (I also picked up some old roleplaying stuff, but that's of less intererst for this blog):

I also met some of the old Belgian wargaming guard (going back to the late 60s or early 70s), which triggered me into making a blog or something about the history of wargaming in Belgium. We'll see.