Shieldwall rule?

[heavyshift16]

So, I just bought SBH and SAM, and was having a quick read through the rules. Primarily, I'm thinking of using them as a base to set up a Viking campaign system, something like SAM, but with the players taking the roles of rival Viking crews and the various locals that were victims of Viking raids, such as Franks, Irish and the Anglo Saxons.

The Vikings would go sailing off in their ships to raid, and the 'locals' would be defending their homes. At the end of the campaign, there would be two winners; One Viking leader who raided the most loot, and one local champion who did the best job of defending their homes from the Vikings.

It might also make an interesting demo game at conventions and the like, with two Viking crews coincidentally arriving at the same village on the same day. The poor locals have to try to defend their homes, while the two Viking players fight over who takes what loot.

So, I'll probably want to pick up the SGD book, and possibly also the SWW book, as they're reccomended with the SAM supplement. I intend to put together my own unnofficial Viking supplement, eventually. What do people think?

[heavyshift16]

Ah. I got typing there, layed out the concept, and went and forgot what I originally intended to ask.

Where exactly would I find the shieldwall rule? It's used in several profiles in SAM, but I haven't been able to find the rule in my (admitedly brief) reading of SAM and SBH.

[cesareborgia]

Hi,
your idea is very nice.

Shieldwall rule is in SWW book.

Pierpaolo

[Heavyshift16]

Thanks for the help, and the encouragement!

[charger3604bbl]

Here is a link to some stats someone did at the Yahoo Group for Vikings:

f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/YIcXTEH6Z6NG_DkBfqPc0st80DNrId_D411F0zB1olw84cGSLtxRn--7yPrelut_2SBRc8f3U8q09RYbYt2NEcaiML83dXhXUTrYqV0/Songlongshipsravens.xls

Chris

[heavyshift16]

Thanks, but the link seems to be broken. It tells me 'document not found'.

[heavyshift16]

Managed to track it down in the yahoo group. He's made some choices differently from how I would have done things, but that's ok. I won't be including the mythic stuff, for instance. I'm aiming for a historically accurate feel. Still, seems like I've been beaten to the idea, unfortunately.

[mikedemana]

Your idea is similar to ones that I have had, but never playtested. I did begin to write campaign rules for a Dark Ages campaign for our regular Sunday night gaming group. We may try it out after we finish another campaign I'm running at the moment. In the Dark Ages campaign, players control either a Viking, Pict, Briton, Angle or Scots-Irish warlord where the lands of the various kingdoms intersect. The players weren't the actual kings of these peoples, but local warlords.

They'd keep track of their retinue, draft replacements, levy militia, etc., to respond to enemy raids, etc. Hopefully, I'll get it up and running one day...I think it shows promise.

As to historical Viking games, I basically went through the special abilities and weeded out the ones I thought were "too fantasy." With the remaining list, I planned on creating soldier profiles for players to choose from for their standard, rank and file troops in their warbands.

I've run a number of one-off historical battles using SBH. I think one change I would make would be to adopt the leader rules from Song of Drums & Shakos. This allows a leader's activations to be split, i.e., roll and receive 3 activations, move for one, give a group order -- interrupt to do the group's activations -- return to the leader to finish his final action (assuming there wasn't a turnover in rolling for the group's activation). I like the feel of this better than the original, SBH leader rules.